


The Opposite of Hate

by LadySokolov



Series: Uncharted tumblr prompt fills [3]
Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Love Confessions, M/M, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 10:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7167806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySokolov/pseuds/LadySokolov
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt fill for fcbakery on tumblr.</p><p>Nathan Drake and Rafe Adler are trapped together, possibly about to die, when Rafe realizes it might be his last chance to tell Nate something very important.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Opposite of Hate

The fight had been chaos, a mess of bullets and explosions and broken bits of wood and stone, and Nathan Drake had charged at the first enemy he had seen, only realizing when he was a split-second away from making contact that his target was Rafe Adler himself.

They had gone sprawling onto the ground together, said ground proving to be little more than an old wooden floor barely covered with enough dirt and plant-life to disguise itself. It had immediately given way beneath them as they landed, the two of them falling through several layers of dilapidated buildings before falling into a series of underground caverns. They both landed on cold, hard and slightly damp stone.

The wind had been knocked out of Nate’s chest, and it took him a moment to recover and to remind his body how breathing was supposed to work. He stumbled to his feet, wincing as he discovered a new gash on his forehead and a twinge in his knee that he was sure had not been there before.

He blinked a couple of times as his eyes grew used to the darkness. There was a little bit of light streaming in from where they had fallen through the ceiling; just enough for him to make out the rest of the cavern. It wasn’t very large, with disappointingly smooth walls and a small underwater stream flowing through the middle.

And there, on the other side of the small stream, lay the unmoving form of Rafe Adler.

“Oh god no,” Nate murmured, thinking that the other man was dead.

No, no, no. Rafe couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t. As much as they had been fighting this whole time Nate had never thought that Rafe would actually...

And then Rafe let out a pained groan, and Nate let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding in.

Rafe slowly pushed himself up until he was sitting with his legs folded beneath him. The business mogul looked even worse than Drake felt.

The sound of a couple of voices calling back and forth came from somewhere above them. As far as Nate knew the only people still alive up there and likely to hear them were a couple of Shoreline mercs, but he would gladly risk facing their guns and explosives if it meant being rescued.

“Hey!” Nate called out, his voice echoing in their stony prison. “Hey! Down here! We need help!”

But there was no response from up above. If anything, the shouting grew more distant.

“Come on jackasses!” Nate continued to scream. “Your boss is down here with me. Aren’t you going to come and save his sorry ass?”

“I don’t think they can hear you,” Rafe snarled at Nate as he sat curled up on the floor, one hand clutching at his side where there was a worryingly large patch of blood seeping through his dark t-shirt.

“Thanks for the update genius,” Nathan said, before letting out a loud sigh and taking another look around the cavern.

There had to be some way out; there was always a way out. A quick inspection of either end of the stream however revealed that it was far too shallow for them to be able to swim out, and the ceiling was high enough above their heads that even with one of them standing on top of the other’s shoulders they would be a few feet short of reaching it.

They had no rope or light, an inspection of Rafe’s cell phone revealed that it had broken in the fall and Nate had lost his yesterday in the ship wreck. They had no way out that Nate could see, and no way of calling anyone for help, even Rafe’s Shoreline goons. They were, in short, completely screwed.

Rafe let out a groan of pain from between tightly clenched teeth. Now that Nate had established there was absolutely no hope of either of them escaping any time soon he wandered over to sit beside Rafe on the ground. He had been putting off looking at the wound for fear that there would be nothing that he could do to stave off a slow and painful death for the other man, but now that he knew for sure they weren’t getting out any time soon he had no choice.

“Here,” he said, trying to get Rafe to move his hands. “Let me take a look at that.”

Rafe’s eyebrows furrowed deeply as he looked at Nate, as though he didn’t trust his fellow treasure-hunter-slash-thief one single bit. Nate’s fingers tightened around the other man’s hand, attempting to use force to move it when politeness had failed.

“Would you stop fussing over me, please?” Rafe snapped as he flicked Nate’s hand away. In theory he was being polite enough, but every single one of his words, even the ‘please’ had been dripping with disdain.

“If I don’t look at that then it might get infected, and then it won’t matter whether Nadine comes to find us or not,” Nate told him. “An infected stomach wound would kill you slowly, and painfully, and the last time I checked we were a long way from any hospital that would be able to treat it properly.”

Rafe frowned at him again, but then he rolled his eyes and finally moved his hand away, letting Nate see the wound beneath.

A quick inspection revealed a rather large and jagged gash in the side of Rafe’s stomach. It wasn’t deep enough to have damaged anything important, but it was bleeding quite a lot, and it looked as though several scraps of fabric and specks of dirt and rock might have entered the wound as well.

Nate wasn’t entirely sure what he could do beyond cleaning it up and hoping that the water down here was clean enough to actually do some good. Nate had to do something though, even if it was just cleaning the wound. He had never been very good at seeing other people in pain, especially not people that he cared for.

(Not that he would admit to caring for Rafe, not even in a situation like this. There was no way in hell he was letting someone as ruthless as Rafe use information like that against him.)

Nate did what he could; tearing off some of Rafe’s shirt and drenching it in the cool water of the underground stream, using the damp cloth to clean Rafe’s wound and get out whatever tiny bits of rock and fabric he could find. The hardest part was forcing himself to ignore the hisses of pain that Rafe kept biting back as Nate worked. 

More of Rafe’s shirt was sacrificed so that Nate could turn it into a makeshift bandage, and Rafe, apparently annoyed at the shredded mess that was left, abandoned it completely, throwing it to the other side of the cave in annoyance.

Once he was finished Nate started doing another check of the cavern, trying to find any sort of handhold or way up and out of the hole that he might have missed earlier. 

He had been searching the same patches of rock over and over again for what must have been close to an hour when Rafe finally spoke up.

“I don’t think they’re going to find us,” he said. “So, in consideration of the fact that we might die down here I...”

“No,” Nate interrupted him sharply. “Don’t talk like that.”

“I’m not...” Rafe murmured, but Nate didn’t want to hear it, whatever it was. He wasn’t going to let Rafe give up just yet.

“Someone is going to find us,” Nate said, “and whether it’s Sam or Nadine or someone else I promise you that they’ll find a way to get us out of here.”

He moved over to sit beside Rafe on the cold stone ground, clapping a hand down on Rafe’s shoulder as he did. Hopefully his attempt at comforting the other man wouldn’t be thrown back in his face.

“We’re going to be all right,” Nate said, looking into Rafe’s eyes and smiling what he hoped was his most cheery, heart-warming smile.

It didn’t seem to have the effect that he wanted. Instead of smiling back Rafe just glared at Nate and forcibly removed the treasure-hunter’s hand from his shoulder.

“Could you please stop being perfect for two fucking seconds and actually listen to what I have to say!?” Rafe screamed.

If the murderous look alone had not been enough to get Nate to shut up, then the words certainly were. 

“Thank you,” Rafe breathed out. He took a moment to adjust how he was sitting and get a little more comfortable, as impossible as that seemed when the ground was as damp and lumpy as it was.

“Look, we both need to admit that there is a very real possibility that neither of us are getting out of here alive,” Rafe tried again. Nate tried to interrupt him once more, but Rafe held up a hand to silence him before he could get a word out.

“I’m not saying that we’re going to die,” Rafe said. “Just that we might, and so, seeing as how this might be my last chance, there’s something that I need to say to you.”

Nate nodded slowly.

“Okay,” he said, trying to ignore the way his heart sped up as he imagined something impossible and beautiful that Rafe might...

But no, he was being stupid. There was no way that Rafe would want to...

“Hang on a second. Did you just call me perfect?” Nate asked, as what Rafe had said earlier finally registered.

“No... maybe,” Rafe stumbled, “but that’s not the point. Could you please just stay silent for a moment and let me speak!?”

“Okay, okay,” Nate said, placing his hands up in a metaphorical surrender. He gestured for Rafe to go ahead and speak, but the other man just sat there in silence for what felt like an age. The atmosphere in the cavern had suddenly grown extremely tense.

Nate let the other man take his time though. Clearly whatever he had to say was important if it was taking him this long to summon up the necessary courage.

“I need to...” Rafe began before trailing off. He swallowed nervously, wet his lips and then began again. “God, this sounds so fucking pathetic, but I need to tell you how I really feel about you. I need to... explain it.”

“How you feel about me?” Nate asked, once again forcing himself to pay no attention to his own treacherous imaginings. There was no way that Rafe’s feelings would be what that stupid, hope-filled part of him wanted them to be.

“Look Rafe, we both know that you hate me,” Nate said, “and I understand why. I really do. I don’t think you need to explain anything.”

“I do,” Rafe said, “because it’s not hate. Not really.”

“Jealousy then?” Nate suggested, knowing as he did that he was probably risking Rafe’s ire and at least a punch to the face by mentioning it, but Rafe surprised him by only sneering in response to that particular suggestion.

“Since I am trying to be as honest as possible I will admit to some jealousy in regards to your accomplishments,” Rafe said with a surprising amount of calm and self-control, “but do you really think I would insist on talking about something as petty as that?”

“What then?” Nate asked. Part of him still held hope, no matter how much he told himself he was being stupid. The thought that Rafe might be about to say those three little words was enough to eject all rational thought from his mind.

Rafe took another, deeper breath, and shook his head, as though he was really having to psych himself up for what he was about to say.

“I like you,” he finally said. “Quite a lot actually. No... no, that’s not right.”

He shook his head again, and then turned to look Nate right in the eye.

“I said it before, didn’t I? You caught me out. You’re perfect Nate. I think you’re perfect. Stupidly, frustratingly perfect.”

“What?” Nate said, unable to think of anything more eloquent, his quick wit having abandoned him as soon as Rafe had spoken. As much as he had been hoping for something like a love confession to be told that Rafe thought he was perfect was almost too much.

“I’m in love with you,” Rafe said, his voice muffled behind his arms, wrapped tightly around the knees which he had tucked up under his chin. “God knows I wish I wasn’t, but I am.”

For a while Nate was so stunned by Rafe’s confession that he couldn’t think of anything to say. He just sat there, staring at Rafe with his mouth hanging open. 

“But you hate me!” Nate finally managed to say.

Rafe scoffed at that.

“No. I don’t. Quite the opposite really. I can’t blame you for being confused. I’ve been trying so hard to catch up to you that I sort of lost sight of things somewhere along the way.”

To catch up to him?

And then suddenly it all made sense. Rafe had been trying so hard to prove to Nate that he was worth the treasure hunter’s attention; trying so hard to turn himself into someone that might be worth Nate’s love.

And now, on top of everything else, Nate found himself feeling sorry for Rafe Adler, of all people.

He smiled softly at the other man.

“Oh Rafe,” Nate began, meaning to tell Rafe that he had been worried for nothing; that if Rafe had truly wanted Nate’s love then all he had to do was ask. 

But Rafe was already worked up and was clearly expecting rejection, and at the first sign of what might prove to be a patronizing smile from Nate he glared at the treasure hunter once more.

“Do not pity me,” he told Nate, carefully enunciating each of the simple words as clearly as possible.

Nate just continued to smile. He couldn’t help it.

Rafe watched Nate very carefully, and very warily, as though Nate was a snake about to strike and not someone that cared for Rafe very deeply, as Nate’s hands slowly reached up to cup either side of Rafe’s face.

Nate leaned in slowly, and Rafe must have finally realized what Nate planned to do, because the other man suddenly went very still, his mouth caught open in an expression of surprise.

Nate leaned in, and ever so gently pressed his lips to Rafe’s.

It was a rather chaste kiss. Nate barely moved his lips against Rafe’s, and he certainly didn’t make a move to deepen it in any way, but that didn’t stop Rafe from letting out a tiny moan and practically collapsing into Nathan’s arms.

Nate held him close, pressing a series of light, gentle kisses to Rafe’s lips, his hands rubbing up and down Rafe’s bare back in what he was hoping was a comforting gesture.

“It’s all right,” he whispered as Rafe’s hands twisted in the fabric of Nathan’s shirt. “It’s all right Rafe.”

They stayed like that for quite a while, whispers and kisses and gentle touches traded between them, before Nate finally pulled back a little and stared down at the man in his arms.

He was just about to say ‘I love you’ when there was a loud crashing sound from above. Both men immediately pulled away from one another as they realized that they were about to be rescued.

Within moments a light was shining down into the pit, and once their eyes adjusted to the new source of light they were able to make out the silhouettes of Nadine and a couple of members of Shoreline as they looked down into the pit.

It only took a few minutes for their rescuers to lower a rope down to them, and for the two of them to be brought up and out of the cavern. Rafe went first, and Nadine immediately fussed over the wound in his side. Rafe waved her away, and her attention immediately turned to Nathan.

She pulled a gun on him, but Rafe quickly stopped her from doing anything.

“No,” he cried out. “Don’t shoot.” 

She lowered her gun, but sent a look in Rafe’s direction, clearly unhappy with her partner’s decision.

“Nathan helped me,” Rafe told her. “He’s free to go.”

It was pretty clear that Nate wasn’t welcome, despite whatever Rafe might say to the contrary, so he stuck around for the few minutes it took to ensure that Rafe was going to be all right, before making ready to leave.

There was one last thing though; one thing that he had to say before he could disappear.

He waited until he caught Rafe’s eyes, and the sorrow that appeared there when Rafe realized Nate was leaving was almost enough to break Nate’s heart.

“By the way,” he said, and Rafe perked up a little. “There’s something I need to say, and I didn’t really get a chance to while we down there, but er...”

Nate scratched the back of his head nervously.

“Me too,” he told Rafe.

He couldn’t say the exact words, not with Nadine and her men crowding around the two of them, but it was clear from the smile that lit up Rafe’s face that he knew exactly what Nate meant.

‘I love you too.’


End file.
